Death toll numbers are coming closer to the nearly 1400 dead Palestinians from Israel's last slaughter in Gaza in 2009. Bibi is telling Israelis to prepare for a "prolonged campaign" of killing in Gaza. That from our closest and bestest ally in the middle east.

This should work out well....

Israeli tank fire hit the fuel depot of the Gaza Strip's only power plant on Tuesday, ...."the power plant is finished", said it's director...

Israeli scoreboard: Killing slowed on Sunday for the first time since July 7th. 1035 Palestinians now dead, 218 of those 1035 are children. 6200 wounded Palestinians. 40 dead Israeli soldiers and 3 dead Israeli civilians.

President Obama is now "growing more concerned" over civilian killings. Growing....more....concerned.

You may have heard that the UN Human Rights Council voted last week to investigate potential human rights abuses in Gaza.

The U.N. top human rights official, Navi Pillay, suggested both Hamas and Israel had committed war crimes in their attacks that have killed civilians in Gaza.

Elsewhere in Judeo-Christian values, we find the U.S. House once again using it's legislative power as a political campaign tool. I didn't realize that the role of the House of Representatives was to vote on impassable legislation for the purpose of exciting the majority's base voters.....

The House of Representatives voted Friday to change a tax credit in a way that would add $115 billion to the deficit and hurt poorer parents while aiding the well-to-do.

Sounds about right. In fact, that AP sentence is a very accurate synopsis of Republican economic policy. Punish the poors and provide breaks for the non-poor....all while increasing the national deficit. The House passed their latest political campaign ad along partisan lines, naturally....and no doubt the conservative extremists for which the bill was passed will be energized to support Republican candidates this November.

The tea party conservative representing Longview in Austin was criticized from the right Wednesday as he advocated compassion for immigrants and outlined legal steps that can be taken at the state level.

In a, well, nutshell, that has been the rebuttal of those opposed to increasing the minimum wage. Whether found in lofty Serious supply side publications like Forbes and the Wall Street Journal or coming out of the mouths of fascist-wannabes on AM Hate Radio.....conservative servants of the 1% just know that raising the minimum wage will result in fewer people working.

State-by-state hiring data released Friday by the Labor Department reveal that in the 13 states that boosted minimum wages at the beginning of this year, the number of jobs grew an average of 0.85 percent from January to June. The average in the other 37 states was 0.61 percent, the Associated Press reports.

The GOP-controlled House passed a $20 billion measure Wednesday that would slash budgets for enforcing tax laws and new financial regulations, and a healthy food initiative that's a pet cause of first lady Michelle Obama.

The House passed the bill on a nearly party-line, 228-195, vote.

Many folks who still have the capacity to think for themselves have watched the House Maniacs in their bizarre attempt to muster up an IRS scandal where none exists. Now we can better understand why. House Republicans never really cared about Lois Lerner. She was simply a prop in the House GOP Maniacs plan to degrade the abilities of the IRS to 1) enforce duly enacted laws and 2) collect taxes.

Think of the IRS non-scandal theater as the Bundy Ranch standoff, without the military weaponry. If you need a political party to represent you in Washington, a political party that will help you in your plans to avoid paying taxes.....then, the GOP is your party.

Today I recommend a contrarian article pertaining to the Malaysian plane downing. It's worth a read.

None of the "players" can be trusted to tell the truth. And that includes U.S. players. Like President Obama.....

“For months we’ve supported a pathway to peace, and the Ukrainian government has reached out to all Ukrainians, put forward a peace plan and lived up to a cease-fire, despite repeated violations by the separatists, violations that took the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and personnel.”

By emphasizing the comparative body counts without providing the reasons for the disparity, the media plays into the hands of Hamas, and encourages that terrorist organization to continue to pursue its dead baby strategy.

If that is not offensive enough......then go here. Look at the pictures. It seems that the brutal slaughter of nowhere-to-go Gazans has now become an exciting spectator sport in Israel. Perhaps the U.S. military complex can learn something here.

I don't have enough information yet to make a determination on the Malaysian commercial airliner which was allegedly shot down over the Ukrainian-Russia border. Most of the Village is blaming Russia or "pro-Russian separatists." That, alone, should be reason to be skeptical.

What's clear is that the expertise, and the equipment, to shoot down an airliner flying at 33,000 feet, suggests state players....rogue, or not. Yes, east-Ukrainian players did take credit for downing one Ukrainian military fighter plane and one military transport plane....but those planes were reported to have been downed by shoulder launched missile hits. Shoulder held missile launchers do not have the capability to down a plane flying at 33,000 feet. At this point, my wildest guess would be that the downing of the airliner was a mistake....a miscalculation. I don't see how any of the players in the current and ongoing dispute in Ukraine benefit from killing 295 civilians.

According to PolitiFact (I know, not totally reliable), President Obama has deported undocumented immigrants at a rate of 32,886 per month during his tenure. President George W. Bush's monthly rate of deportation was 20,964.

This is important, why?

Because according to those being victimized by Obama's "immigration policies", that is, Republicans,.....it has been Obama's "failed immigration and border policies" which have created the recent influx of some 50,000 minor Latino children, mostly teenagers, into the United States. Like, for example, this Republican victim....

Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said to fix the crisis, “the administration must first recognize its failed immigration and border policies are the source of the problem.”

Ah, I remember it well. The great day the New Patriots would later point to as the day that launched a legion of assholians on a quest to retake THEIR country from the Usurper inaugurated only four weeks previous.

In some ways it was fitting for the CNBC bond trading analyst, Rick Santelli, to be the face of the then-new Tea Party. Santelli had heard about the new Obama administration's plan to create the HAMP program as kind of a make-up call after the Wall Street Criminals had all been infused with government-bailout cash. HAMP was to be a $50 billion program earmarked to help victims of the Bankster Greed Orgy. But victims, to rich assholes, are "losers."

Here are a few sweet spots from Rick Santelli's infamous rant on February 19, 2009....

"Why don't you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet as a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages;..."

"We're under great threat, because we occupy so many countries," Paul said. "We're in 130 countries. We have 900 bases around the world. We're going broke. The purpose of al-Qaida was to attack us, invite us over there, where they can target us. And they have been doing it. They have more attacks against us and the American interests per month than occurred in all the years before 9/11, but we're there occupying their land. And if we think that we can do that and not have retaliation, we're kidding ourselves. We have to be honest with ourselves. What would we do if another country, say, China, did to us what we do to all those countries over there?"

Inside the Empire, that is a gaffe. A gaffe today means "telling the truth in front of an American audience." The longest war of the United States of America isn't our war on terrorism.....it's our war on the truth.

My step-daughter and her husband visited Yellowstone National Park last week. The pictures they brought home were great, some quite spectacular. I asked my step daughter how she would like it if Yellowstone was privatized, sold off, or leased off to some for-profit enterprise. She responded that anyone who tried to do something like that should be put in prison.

On Tuesday, (Senator Ted) Cruz (R-TX) filed an amendment to the Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2014 (S. 2363) to force the federal government to sell off a significant portion of the country’s most prized lands in the West. The amendment would prohibit the federal government from owning more than 50 percent of any land within one state, and requires the government to transfer the excess land to the states or sell it to the highest bidder.

Yes, Cruz is a crazy dude. Worse, many of the Very Serious have been touting Cruz as the likely GOP presidential candidate in 2016. When Cruz playacted an ego-driven, "filibuster" in his attempt to rescind Obamacare.....the Villagers rallied in support of the crazy man. Conservative base voters instantly made Cruz there preferred favorite to go against Hillary in 2016.

Sad to see the 2016 Republican Convention coming to Cleveland. I realize that corporate/economic national practices have turned all big city leaders into beggars sitting on the corner waiting for Corporate Daddy Warbucks to adopt them and shower them with free national media public relations time and a few extra sales tax dollars.....but what ever happened to basic integrity?

Speaking of lack of integrity.....I also noticed yesterday that the GOP's vice presidential candidate in 2008, "you betcha", called for the impeachment of President Barack Obama.....

“It’s time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment,” Palin wrote in a column published Tuesday on the conservative website Breitbart. “The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is.”

But my topic of focus today is not about the national fools and foolishness of the day......but rather the national professional media which chooses which daily fools and what daily foolishness is important for us non-professionals to know about.....undoubtedly so that we will all be better informed.

Ohio Governor Kasich says that he's all about helping business. Kasich is a supply sider who still believes, wrongly, that continually giving breaks to business and a rich few will eventually trickle down prosperity to the not-rich. So, why did 70 manufacturers and organizations in Ohio write a letter to the governor pleading with him to stop his plan to....hurt businesses in Ohio?

A group of more than 70 manufacturers and organizations, including Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. and Whirlpool Corp., are pleading with Ohio Gov. John Kasich to reduce the effects of freezing the state's 2008 renewables and energy efficiency initiative.

“Freezing the standards for two years creates a start-stop effect that will confuse the marketplace, disrupt investment and reduce energy savings for customers during this period,” the letter said. “And this negative effect of the freeze will persist beyond the two years. We expect the result will be higher electric bills and less investment.”

Remember when the daily buzz word in efforts to blame Obama for the sluggish economic recovery was..."uncertainty?" Businesses, we were told by deception artists, weren't hiring and expanding because of all the "uncertainties." It was all hogwash, of course. But it muddled the discussion over what was really ailing the national economy. Average consumers didn't have enough disposable income to drive the economy. There was no "uncertainty" about it.

House Speaker John Boehner announced Wednesday he plans to file suit against President Obama over his alleged abuse of executive power....

Boehner had been weighing such a lawsuit in recent days, over concerns that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority with executive actions. Republicans have voiced frustration with Obama's second-term "pen and phone" strategy of pursuing policy changes without Congress....

(Boehner) said he plans to bring legislation authorizing the suit to the floor in July, citing concerns that Obama's executive actions could shift the "balance of power decisively and dangerously" in favor of the White House -- giving the president "king-like authority."

Remember when President Obama asserted that income inequality in America was "“a fundamental threat to the American Dream, our way of life and what we stand for around the globe.”? Obama made that very accurate statement a mere seven months ago.

After making fighting income inequality an early focus of his second term, President Obama has largely abandoned talk of the subject this election year in a move that highlights the emerging debate within the Democratic Party over economic populism and its limits.

Now, why would that be the case? How could a "fundamental threat to the American Dream" seven months ago simply be "abandoned" with 'never-mind' dismissiveness by a Democratic president?

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Ladies, men have been blaming you from, literally, day one. And those labor pains associated with childbirth......oh, and who your day to day boss is......well, you can thank the loving Yahweh for that.....

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday allowed, at least for now, an evangelical college in Illinois that objects to paying for contraceptives in its health plan to avoid filling out a government document that the college says would violate its religious beliefs.

The Christian sensibilities of Wheaton College officials are so very tender that the High Priests of the U.S. Supreme Court had to excuse them from having to "fill out a form that enables their insurers or third-party administrators to take on the responsibility of paying for the birth control."

The only respected religion in the U.S. is Christianity. All other religions are suspect, with the exception of Judaism.....I guess, because Christianity was birthed out of Judaism. So was Islam, but Muslims are genocidal, terrorist maniacs...so Islam isn't worthy of respect.

According to the Supreme Court of the United States of 2014....."sincerely held religious beliefs" (translation: sincerely held Christian/Jewish beliefs) of U.S. citizens can now be properly ascertained by 5 Holy Catholic Supreme Court Justices. It may have not registered with many folks yet, but that is one helluva new power the Supremes claim they have.

What is especially revealing in the Supremes tragic ruling making corporations entities capable of worship and possessing a conscience is the criteria used by the 5 Supremes in determining how "sincere" the Green family's "religious beliefs" really are. Yes, the Hobby Lobby owner-family claimed that they really, really.....honest to god....believe that specific contraceptive products destroy fertilized human eggs, and that that destruction oh-so-violates the Green family's very sensitive consciences that they couldn't be true to their god if they knew that their employees, perchance, might be ordering, and using, such ungodly products.

No, the Obamacare mandate didn't force the Green family, or any other family or individual, to use contraception.....but a provision which gave employees the option of choosing to use contraceptives made the Green's feel, you know, dirty.....complicit in "sin."

I live in the 16th U.S. District of Ohio. It is one of many redrawn Ohio districts purposely manipulated to dilute Democratic votes. The current U.S. Representative of the 16th District is GOP Rep. Jim Renacci. Earlier this year, Mr. Renacci came to Suffield Township (The Reverend lives in Brimfield Twp) for a quick chat-and-go session. I attended. You know me....I couldn't keep quiet during the Q&A.....so I challenged the Republican. His answers were misleading and disingenuous.....just like his answers have been over charges that he was paid-to-play in the Ben Suarez criminal case.

Last week, just as the Suarez case was reaching completion, I received an expensive looking foldout piece in the mail of Renacci propaganda argle-bargling some nonsense about how much Renacci cares about seniors in his district. It was an obvious ploy seeking to counter the bad publicity Renacci was getting over his connection to Suarez.

Interestingly, the mailer was a ploy the Wadsworth politician has used before....this is from 2011....

We just received a full-color piece of mail sent by Rep. Jim Renacci, “prepared, published, and mailed at taxpayer expense” (under the congressional franking privilege, of course). This was essentially a campaign piece, full of distortions and misrepresentations meant to scare senior citizens — and to get him re-elected next year.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the court’s conservative justices said an Illinois requirement that home health aides help cover a union’s cost of collective bargaining violates their First Amendment right to free speech.

The Conservative Freedom Forces on the Supreme Court again sided with business interests in their ruling yesterday against home health care workers. Allowing those poorly paid, salt-of-the-earth types to improve their standard of living by being a part of a public workers union was just too much freedom for the "free speech" protectors.

Attempting to better your standard of living....is now a violation of free speech rights. What will they think up next, huh?